You Lost?

I forgot about a conversation I had with my son at the grocery store yesterday. While at the pharmacy he noticed a bunch of products for ears, including medicine for swimmer's ear. He saw the swimmer on the package and began asking about the medicine. Then he asked about the cap on his head. I told him that it helped make swimmers faster. I told him I wore one when I used to race. His eyes got big and he immediately asked if I won and got a trophy. I told him I did win a lot of races and that I did get a trophies, medals, ribbons, etc. I have a little bit of a fear of my son thinking that I'm the strongest man in the world, so I confessed that even though I won races, I lost races too. His eyes got even bigger. But his face did not express pride as before. This time he looked a little perplexed. I wondered just how hard he was taking this in light of a little boy at our church who once bragged to another little boy that his daddy flew a bigger plane than the other boy's daddy. The other boy, of course, responded that his daddy's plane was bigger. Finally, the first boy's father explained to him, "It's true. The other boy's daddy flied a bigger plane," and his little boy broke down in tears. From watching our son with his former next door neighbor, I also know that even little kids don't like losing and always like winning. In fact, my son asked, "You lost? But you won most of the time, right?" It seemed he was still in denial that his daddy could lose or that losing was okay. So, I wanted to get this explanation right. I explained that everyone loses sometimes, even if they are really good at something, but it's no big deal. Short and sweet--not my usual style, but I'm realizing more and more that my style isn't naturally effective. At the end of our discussion, the perplexed expression turned into a pensive one--a success in my book.